Gasification and pyrolysis technologies have been deployed for many years in many sectors worldwide.
Today's gasification technology consists of three basic methods: (1) counter-current fixed bed (“up draft”) gasification; (2) co-current fixed bed (“down draft”) gasification; and (3) entrained flow gasification. All three methods are dependent on the types of feedstock used for the gasification process. That is, all of the current gasification systems that apply the three above methods generally rely on the use of homogenous feed stocks (fuel) such as biomass or coal. None of the gasification systems use a heterogeneous feedstock.
Moreover, these gasification methods of the art are also dependent upon the various characteristics of the feedstock, such as their size, water content, and combustibility. This is particularly so since these methods also depend on the reactor agent, i.e., oxygen, which initiates the combustion. For this reason, the syngas produced from these methods contains unwanted hydrocarbon particles and these hydrocarbon substances break up at higher temperature to produce ash. Therefore, the types of syngas produced in these methods would require complicated filtering subsystems to provide the desired syngas products.
Moreover, the pyrolysis technologies that are currently used in the market require a substantial amount of energy input for the waste treatment, and these applications must overcome serious obstacles when treating medical or toxic waste with a high water content and/or a highly-heterogeneous mixture of materials.
Generally the current pyrolysis methods are considered costly due to high energy usage, and therefore the treatment of toxic waste and medical waste using these methods either is not profitable or may result in economic losses. In addition, current methods of supplying energy to these pyrolyzers are not efficient, since the processes are usually slow (requiring a minimum from 8-12 hours/batch) and fuel costs are high in current market as mentioned above.
For these reasons, high cost and low efficiency, most medical wastes and hazardous wastes are treated with incinerators with 1200° C. or higher, a method that can cause alarming air pollution that can result in serious harm to human health.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved, economically-viable, profitable systems and methods for safe and efficient processing of medical and toxic waste, and, more particularly, for processing of heterogeneous mixtures of such toxic waste materials.